DETROIT – The Detroit Red Wings played a pretty complete game Thursday night against the Edmonton Oilers; just ask their coach.

The Wings got a 22-save performance from Jimmy Howard and goals from Jakub Kindl, Cory Emmerton and Justin Abdelkader to skate past the Oilers, 3-0.

“We didn’t skate as well or execute as well as we would have liked in the first period, but in saying that we got better and it was a pretty complete game for us,” Babcock said. “We didn’t give up much and our goalie was under way less duress than the other night. This sets us up for our road game here.”

The Wings, who play at Columbus on Saturday afternoon, are now 6-1-1 over the last eight games and have allowed five goals during that stretch.

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“This last run we’ve had we’ve played way better defensively than we have, with the exception of our last game, we’ve played real well,” Babcock said. “I thought our fourth line was outstanding, (Joakim) Andersson was unreal, a really good player for us and Emmerton’s line was good as well. So we had all our lines on deck tonight going.”

The shutout was Howard’s second of the season and 13th for his career.

“I think we’re playing well as a team,” Howard said. “We’re doing a lot of great things. We’ve been playing real well for a while now, focusing on the details and doing the little things right.”

It’s the fifth straight game the Wings have not allowed a goal by the opposition through two periods.

“There’s a lot of talk in our own zone right now,” Howard said. “Guys are trusting one another to do their jobs, and second efforts and blocking shots.”

Over the Wings’ last five games they’ve scored just eight goals, this after putting up eight in one game on Vancouver.

“We’re a team right now that’s playing really well in all three zones,” Abdelkader said. “We might not be scoring six or seven goals a game, but we know we have to play tight defensively and I think we’ve been doing a good job of that and Howie has been playing really well in net for us as well.”

A fight between Jordin Tootoo and Mike Brown just two minutes and 34 seconds into the second period may have been the spark the Wings’ offense needed as they scored twice in the middle frame.

Kindl opened the scoring just 42 seconds after the off-setting fighting majors, going end-to-end to record his second goal of the season. Ladislav Smid blocked Kindl’s original shot, but the Wings defenseman kept with it and picked up the loose puck and snuck a soft shot under Devan Dubnyk’s left pad.

Emmerton doubled the Wings’ advantage with a blast between the faceoff dots.

Coming off the bench on a change for Pavel Datsyuk, Emmerton gained easy entry to the Oilers’ zone and got a pass from Drew Miller from along the boards and he quickly fired a puck past Dubnyk, who finished with 25 saves, for his second goal of the game.

“Pavel broke his stick, it was the end of a shift,” Emmerton said. “He changed and Millsy made a heads-up play there to get it to me in the middle. I just tried to make a good shot there. I think I kind of got lost in the change and came in a little bit higher than they expected but it’s nice to get that little bit of open space. You don’t get it too often.”

And unlike Tuesday, the Wings held the Oilers off the score sheet with their goalie pulled and then added an empty netter from Abdelkader, his first goal since in at Nashville on March 10, 2012.

“It’s a long time coming,” Abdelkader said. “It feels like I haven’t scored in about five years. I’ve seen a lot of fluky things (happen on empty net attempts). Once I got it I just wanted to shoot it because I saw the defenseman closing in. I wanted to make sure to shoot it before he got his stick in the way.

“Sometimes it’s those kinds of goals, maybe off your body or something like that will get you going,” Abdelkader added. “I felt good. I had some chances. Hopefully, I get a few more breaks here.”

Abdelkader led the team with five shots on goal.

“You just keep putting it on net and hope for the best,” Abdelkader said. “I’m not too worried about it. I need to keep playing a hard game and keep hanging onto pucks.”

It was the sixth game of a nine-game road trip for Edmonton, which wraps up Tuesday in Colorado.

Send comments to chuck.pleiness@macombdaily.com and visit his blog at redwingsfront.wordpress.com